Comments on: How To Utilize Your 404 Pages http://www.garryconn.com/how-to-utilize-your-404-pages.php Primarily covering topics about affiliate & search engine marketing, micro & mobile blogging, making money online, search engine ranking & optimization, social media & networking, software & technology, web development & graphic design, and anything else on my mind. Tue, 16 Mar 2010 07:20:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Garry Conn http://www.garryconn.com/how-to-utilize-your-404-pages.php/comment-page-1#comment-33 Garry Conn Fri, 05 Jan 2007 07:14:44 +0000 http://garryconn.com/how-to-utilize-your-404-pages.php#comment-33 lol You are welcome! lol

You are welcome!

]]> By: eches http://www.garryconn.com/how-to-utilize-your-404-pages.php/comment-page-1#comment-32 eches Fri, 05 Jan 2007 06:30:15 +0000 http://garryconn.com/how-to-utilize-your-404-pages.php#comment-32 Yeah I got it :) An error page is always an error page, no matter how appealing it looks like. The bottom line is we can't cheat bots and the way to deal with it is by fixing all the error pages. Thanks for englightenment! Yeah I got it :) An error page is always an error page, no matter how appealing it looks like. The bottom line is we can’t cheat bots and the way to deal with it is by fixing all the error pages. Thanks for englightenment!

]]> By: Garry Conn http://www.garryconn.com/how-to-utilize-your-404-pages.php/comment-page-1#comment-31 Garry Conn Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:32:51 +0000 http://garryconn.com/how-to-utilize-your-404-pages.php#comment-31 You are welcome for the backlink... it is a great article that got me to thinking... There are two issues at hand: 1.) Utilizing the 404 page for visits is much easier than doing it for SEO. With visitors you can tell them "Hey, this content has been moved, or doesn't exist anymore... sorry! But I want to invite you to our home page to read even better content". With SEO that's all different. You can tell a Google Bot, sorry... the relevant content you were wanting to cache isn't there anymore, but if you want to, crawl to my homepage and start your search there. Granted, the bot might or might not do that... but no matter what, you lose SEO points. A Google Bot knows its 404 page, there isn't anything you can do to change it. It will know. You can't hide it from a bot. It is an error, and having errors on your pages is not a good thing. The more time I have had to think about all this over the last day, I don't think there is anything you can do to make a 404 page look good in Google's eyes. Ultimately, my final opinion on this matter is... it is best NOT to create any 404 pages all together. They are BAD. And if you are willing to invest the time into utilizing them, that time could have been better used correcting the pages in the first place... because, again... these are error pages. Errors and mistakes should be dealt with, not utilized. You know what I mean? Having all that said, looks like I am going to be investing a night into correcting all my 404 error pages within all my sites... Yuck! lol :) You are welcome for the backlink… it is a great article that got me to thinking…

There are two issues at hand:

1.) Utilizing the 404 page for visits is much easier than doing it for SEO. With visitors you can tell them “Hey, this content has been moved, or doesn’t exist anymore… sorry! But I want to invite you to our home page to read even better content”. With SEO that’s all different. You can tell a Google Bot, sorry… the relevant content you were wanting to cache isn’t there anymore, but if you want to, crawl to my homepage and start your search there. Granted, the bot might or might not do that… but no matter what, you lose SEO points. A Google Bot knows its 404 page, there isn’t anything you can do to change it. It will know. You can’t hide it from a bot. It is an error, and having errors on your pages is not a good thing.

The more time I have had to think about all this over the last day, I don’t think there is anything you can do to make a 404 page look good in Google’s eyes.

Ultimately, my final opinion on this matter is… it is best NOT to create any 404 pages all together. They are BAD. And if you are willing to invest the time into utilizing them, that time could have been better used correcting the pages in the first place… because, again… these are error pages. Errors and mistakes should be dealt with, not utilized. You know what I mean?

Having all that said, looks like I am going to be investing a night into correcting all my 404 error pages within all my sites… Yuck! lol :)

]]> By: eches http://www.garryconn.com/how-to-utilize-your-404-pages.php/comment-page-1#comment-30 eches Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:10:45 +0000 http://garryconn.com/how-to-utilize-your-404-pages.php#comment-30 Thanks mate for the backlink..very much appreciated..To be honest, I myself havent modified my 404 error page yet, dont have luxury time to tinker it. I'm thinking of putting subtle decor with a link back to main page. That will suffice as far as visitors and SEO are concerned. Thanks mate for the backlink..very much appreciated..To be honest, I myself havent modified my 404 error page yet, dont have luxury time to tinker it. I’m thinking of putting subtle decor with a link back to main page. That will suffice as far as visitors and SEO are concerned.

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